{"id":28419,"date":"2016-04-24T14:11:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-24T17:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=28419"},"modified":"2016-04-27T14:12:43","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T17:12:43","slug":"impeachment-vote-reveals-five-things-you-didnt-know-about-brazils-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=28419","title":{"rendered":"Impeachment Vote Reveals Five Things You Didn\u2019t Know About Brazil\u2019s Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For the original article by Renata Mendon\u00e7a\u00a0in Portuguese published by BBC Brasil\u00a0<\/em>click<\/em> here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sunday April 17\u2019s voting process<\/a> in Brazil’s Congress for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff<\/a> had all Brazilians\u2019 eyes glued to their TVs, not only for the end result but for the speeches given during the voting process.<\/h4>\n

Amongst commentary on social media about the vote, the word “disgrace” was one of the most commonly mentioned\u2013used more than 270,000 times to describe what was happening.<\/p>\n

Sunday afternoon was the time to find out what 511 of 513 parliamentarians felt (two abstained\u00a0from voting) and it revealed a few things about them that no one really knew.<\/p>\n

BBC Brasil<\/em> has put together a list of the facts:<\/p>\n

1. Only a small group of the deputies were elected by direct vote<\/h3>\n

According to statistics from the Superior Electoral Tribunal, the Congress elected in 2014 has only 73 representatives who were elected by direct vote from the electorate. The other 440 won their parliamentary seats through two key elements\u00a0in the Brazilian political system: the electoral quotient\u00a0and the party quotient.<\/p>\n

They work as follows: election for any candidate for federal or state representative depends not only on the votes received from the electorate but those received from their party or coalition.<\/p>\n

Therefore, all valid votes in the election (i.e. the total number of votes for all\u00a0candidates, not including those blank or void) are divided between the total number of seats\u00a0in each parliamentary body\u00a0(513 in the case of Congress). This division forms the electoral quotient or share. In order to elect members, the party or coalition vote must achieve at least this proportion.*<\/p>\n

\"Electoral<\/a><\/p>\n

Only after this are the number of seats that each party\/coalition will hold determined. And this depends on another element: the party quotient.<\/p>\n

The party quotient\u00a0is calculated by\u00a0dividing\u00a0the number of votes received by each party (not candidate) depending on their electoral rate. Whichever party’s candidates together combine to form the majority will fill the most seats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tallied votes are for each party or coalition and, only in a second stage, for each candidate. This is the big difference. In other words, to know which politicians\u00a0will make up the Congress, you have to first identify\u00a0the victorious political parties and only then, within each coalition of parties that gets a minimum number of votes, can you identify\u00a0those that were most voted for. Then the elected can be ascertained. This is also one of the reasons behind setting the mandate to the party and not to the politicians,\u201d explains the TSE.<\/p>\n

However, the system has discrepancies: a candidate with a significant share of the vote can end up not being elected if their party does not receive enough share of the vote. And a candidate who didn\u2019t receive many votes can also end up being elected if their party has\u00a0a vote winner, so\u00a0a well voted-for candidate can end up increasing the seat ratio for their party.<\/p>\n

This was the case with Celso Russomanno from the S\u00e3o Paulo branch of the Brazilian Republican Party (PRB-SP) who holds the record for the most votes in the history of Congress. With 1.5 million votes, he elected four other candidates from his party (S\u00e9rgio Reis, who received 45,330 votes; Beto Mansur with 31,305; Marcelo Squasoni with 30,315, and Fausto Pinato with 22,097 votes).<\/p>\n

2) Of the 513 congressmen, 273 are cited as having cases in\u00a0the Justice System or in Audit Tribunals<\/h3>\n

According to the Excellencies Project<\/a>, carried out by the NGO Transparency Brazil<\/a>, 273 of the 513 members of the current Congress\u00a0are answering to some form of judicial process. They are cited for cases either in the courts of Justice or Audit.<\/p>\n

They represent 53% of Congress. The cases vary from electoral crimes, to corruption, and even mismanagement of public money.<\/p>\n

\"Members<\/a><\/p>\n

On the list of party members being investigated, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB)<\/a> leads with 53 of its (total of 85) congressmen\u00a0responding to legal cases followed by the Workers Party (PT) which has 44 of its 73 congressmen; Progressive Party (PP) with 40 out of 50; and the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) with 37 out of 62.<\/p>\n

3. Brazil’s Congress represents just a small part of society, and there are very few minorities<\/h3>\n

Another fact that called the attention of those who watched the\u00a0vote is that Congress is largely populated by white men; very few seats are held by black people, women, or those from indigenous backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\"Brazil's<\/a><\/p>\n

A\u00a0survey published on the official congressional\u00a0website after the 2014 elections showed that 80% of the elected congressmen\u00a0were white men; a total of 15.8% identified as brown and 4.1% as black; women made up 10% of Congress; currently no one self-identifying as indigenous\u00a0occupies a seat in Congress.<\/p>\n

These numbers contrast with the reality of Brazilian society: according to the most recent data from IBGE, 54% of the Brazilian population are black and 51% are women.<\/p>\n

4) The word “disgrace” united the country during the vote<\/h3>\n

Faced with an intense political polarization within society, as much among the defenders of the impeachment as among those against it, many people showed their outrage<\/a> at the\u00a0speeches given by the politicians during the vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The word “disgrace” was mentioned more than 270,000 times on Twitter on Sunday according to an observation carried out by BBC Brasil<\/em> using the Sysomos tool. The majority of tweets that the word appeared in were about the vote.<\/p>\n

“I guess losing 7-1 [to Germany in the 2014 World Cup] will no longer be the biggest disgrace Brazil has suffered,” commented one Twitter user. “Guys, do you feel you\u2019re being represented? Because the only thing representing me is disgrace,” said another.<\/p>\n

“One thing I know: regardless of being for\u00a0or against, if the common feeling of disgrace can\u2019t unite us, nothing will,” said a third.<\/p>\n

5. Brazil “stopped” and got to know its representatives with record TV audiences registered<\/h3>\n

With the exception of SBT<\/em>, all the main free TV channels were transmitting live coverage<\/a> of the impeachment vote and audience data showed that most of the country was tuned in to watch each vote\u2013an audience which politicians\u00a0are not used to having.<\/p>\n

\"Millions<\/a>
\nThe Globo network\u2019s audience peaked at 37 points which represents around 7 million households watching the vote. The network transmitted\u00a0close to 500 minutes without any interruption to the live coverage in Congress, a record time period\u2013even longer than during the coverage of the events of 9\/11 in 2001.<\/p>\n

All together, free channels gained more than 50 audience points on Sunday during the vote: Globo<\/em> held 37, Record<\/em> had 8, Band<\/em> had 4, Rede TV<\/em> 2, and 0.8 on TV Brasil<\/em>. These data are preliminary and may be altered once Ibope releases their official figures.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

*How Brazil elects its Congress<\/h3>\n

1. The choice of candidate<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Brazilians choose a candidate, their vote first goes\u00a0to\u00a0the party or coalition (group of parties forming a governing\u00a0pact) of the candidate. Pay attention to coalitions; they tend to be different in each candidacy (parties who align themselves for the presidency can be separate for state elections and vice-versa).<\/p>\n

2. The destination of the\u00a0vote<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before going to\u00a0the candidate, the vote is counted for the party. To participate in the distribution of State Legislative Assembly Seats or in Congress, the party and its coalition needs to achieve an electoral quotient.<\/p>\n

3. Electoral Quotient\u00a0(QE)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The electoral quotient<\/a>\u00a0represents how many votes each party or coalition needs to hold to obtain a seat. It is proportionately calculated by dividing the number of eligible votes cast in the election (all, except any blank or void) by the total number of seats in the Congress\u00a0or Assembly.<\/p>\n

4. Party\u00a0Quotient<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the vote count, the party quotient\u00a0of the vote will determine how many seats each party or coalition will hold in the Congress or Assembly. It is calculated by dividing the number of votes the party and all of its candidates have by the electoral quotient.<\/p>\n

5. The dance of the seats<\/strong><\/p>\n

The positions are filled by the most voted for candidates in the party\/coalition in descending order until all the seats they hold are filled. What\u00a0can happen:<\/p>\n

– If the party does not receive the necessary number of votes to guarantee a seat\u00a0(electoral quotient), their candidate may not be elected, even if they received more votes than others.<\/p>\n

– Because of the way the calculations work, a candidate that receives a large number of votes can end up pulling other less voted-for candidates into seats alongside them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article by Renata Mendon\u00e7a\u00a0in Portuguese published by BBC Brasil\u00a0click here. Sunday April 17\u2019s voting process in Brazil’s Congress for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff had all Brazilians\u2019 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,1330,328],"tags":[1688,140,479,595,698,2012,671,300],"writer":[2029],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-policies","8":"category-translation","9":"category-understanding-rio","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-democracy","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-federal-government","15":"tag-impeachment","16":"tag-president-dilma-rousseff","17":"tag-transparency","18":"writer-renata-mendonca","19":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28419"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=28419"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=28419"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=28419"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=28419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}